College football notebook: NCAA says Boise State can assist homeless recruit

The NCAA said Boise State can immediately assist a homeless recruit who signed to play with the team in February.

Antoine Turner said in an interview with a TV station that he recently has been living in a motel, along with a car belonging to his girlfriend, as he finishes up classes at Fullerton College in California.

Boise State received clearance yesterday from the NCAA to reach out to Turner and offer support.

After graduating from Fullerton, the defensive tackle is scheduled to take summer classes at Boise State, where he will live in a dorm and have a meal plan.

Turner grew up in New Orleans and told the station that his mom died of cancer when he was young, putting a strain on his relationship with his father. He moved around throughout his childhood.

An uncle gave him a place to stay in government-subsidized housing, until an issue with regulations recently arose. He has been sleeping in motels and anywhere else ever since.

Officials for Boise State said they didn’t realize how bad things had gotten for Turner until the television report. They were in contact with him, but the football coaches had no idea he was homeless.

• The Pac-12 will announce today that it is moving the league championship game to the San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., a person familiar with the decision said.

Commissioner Larry Scott said last week that the league was mulling whether to move its championship game to the 68,500-seat, $1.2 billion Levi’s Stadium, which opens this year.

• Nebraska linebacker Josh Banderas told campus police that he and a member of the men’s track team planned to sell the bicycles they stole from racks near university housing units on the Internet.

Banderas and distance runner Lucas Keifer’s scheme is outlined in a probable cause affidavit. Banderas and Keifer were arrested for felony theft on Monday after police received a report of men cutting bike locks and loading bikes into the bed of a pickup.

• Oklahoma State will lose one day of practice time per week this season because of a low Academic Progress Rate score.

The NCAA requires teams to earn a 930 four-year average to avoid practice restrictions. Oklahoma State’s average is 929.41. If the score had reached 929.50, it would have been rounded up and the Cowboys would have avoided the penalty.